Wimbledon a victim of death by misadventure

FA Commission was against creation of AFC Wimbledon and too keen to appease football investors in move to MK

Kingsmeadow Stadium, South London, Wednesday night, a football ground packed with over 4,000 people on the brink of tears. Two thousand souls locked out, clamouring to be part of it. A team and manager desperate to win for the fans, whose hearts had been mended by seeing the first ever home match of their new club, AFC Wimbledon, in the Combined Counties League. A chairman, with a lump in his throat, saying it was all about community, and supporters.

All of this is "not in the wider interests of football" according to the Football Association commission which approved the move by Wimbledon FC – now derided by supporters as "Franchise FC" – to a stadium due to be built in Milton Keynes. Kris Stewart, chair of Wimbledon Independent Supporters' Association and now of AFC Wimbledon, told the FA's three-man commission in May that, if it approved the move, the fans would regard their club, formed in 1889, as dead, and would form a new club, starting in whichever league would accept them. In its judgment, which, by a 2-1 majority, allowed the move, the commission said: "Resurrecting the club from its ashes as, say, 'Wimbledon Town' is, with respect to those supporters who would rather that happened so that they could go back to the position the club started in 113 years ago, not in the wider interests of football."

This extraordinary statement, the opinion of two people, Raj Parker, a commercial lawyer, and Steven Stride, the operations director of Aston Villa plc, comes from a judgment with which almost nobody in football agrees yet which is subject to no right of appeal. Alan Turvey, chairman of the Ryman League, the third member of the FA commission, is widely assumed to have voted against. This week he told me: "Everybody thinks that but I feel it would be wrong of me to say how I voted." He did, however, say: "I don't agree with the commission's statement. How can it be wrong for a club to re-form? What the fans are doing is marvellous and I do wish them well."

On Thursday, Adam Crozier, the FA's own chief executive, described the commission's decision as "appalling" and said: "The FA is very much against it. We are looking into it because we don't believe it's a good thing for the game."

But Crozier himself appeared confused about the process, which has shown the football authorities to be unable to govern the game according to their own rules. Crozier said the decision was the result of "binding arbitration" entered into by the Football League and Wimbledon, but in fact that earlier arbitration sent the decision back to the League, which had previously refused Wimbledon permission to move. The League then wrote to the FA in April, asking it to appoint a commission to decide on an issue of wider significance which affected "the fabric of the game in this country."

The FA set up the commission – but, for an organisation Crozier says is now committed to transparency, with secrecy verging on the paranoid. The three members were appointed but the FA still will not say how or why and at the time would not even say who. The hearing took place behind closed doors and even the fans' groups were only allowed to see the "gist" of the club's submission, after "confidential material" had been taken out and "on the condition that the fans' group representatives undertake not to disclose its contents to any other person."

When the commission produced its decision, the FA only published a summary of it under pressure from supporters' groups and with a demonstration growing angrier outside in Soho Square.

WISA immediately made a formal complaint to the Independent Football Commission, the new toothless body set up to review the football authorities' running of the game. WISA argued that the commission "gave the appearance of bias" towards the club and "failed to scrutinise [the club's evidence] properly." It also claimed that the commission was overly "effusive" about the case presented by Pete Winkelman, the effervescent Milton Keynes missionary.

The IFC referred the compaint to the Football League for comment on 9 July, and has so far waited over six weeks for a reply. This is not a procedure to set pulses racing.

The ruling did, though, provide a useful chronology of events. It confirmed what the fans always believed, that in 1997 Sam Hammam, the club's former owner, sold 80 per cent of Wimbledon, who had no ground, for £25m to the Norwegian shipping billionaires Kjell Inge Rokke and Bjorn Gjelsten – who, according to the commission, "were led to believe (rightly or wrongly) that the English football authorities" would not block a move to Dublin.

They were, from the beginning, buying a football "franchise". But in May 1998, the Irish Football Association refused to sanction the move and the English FA stood by that decision. The Norwegians found themselves stuck with a homeless club, living above their means on a small hardcore of supporters, many of whom had followed the club since non-League days. When, in April 2000, Hammam sold the remaining 20 per cent to Charles Koppel, the club's current chairman, and Matthias Hauger, they paid only £1.5m, proportionately less than a quarter of the 1997 price.

Hammam had also profited by selling Wimbledon's home ground at Plough Lane, which had been transferred from the club's ownership to his own company, then leased back for rent. Hammam bought out a council-imposed covenant restricting the ground's use to sport, then sold it to Safeway in 1994. (Hammam's profit, although the commission does not cite it, was £5m.) Safeway, the commission were told, now want £12m-£13m for Plough Lane, the single greatest barrier to the club's return.

The Norwegians, stuck at Selhurst with a club for which they so massively overpaid, pleaded poverty to the commission, via Koppel. A consultant's report was produced from Deloitte & Touche, which showed Wimbledon made an "operating loss" of £10.8m in 2001. The commission's summary decision does not analyse why or suggest that Wimbledon should cut their wage bill, nor did it mention the £8.7m made that year from selling players like Carl Cort (£7m), Ben Thatcher (£5m), Herman Hreidarsson (£4m) and John Hartson. Wimbledon have always been a selling club, punching well above their weight for 20 years.

Winkelman, the commission said, was "passionate and frank, genuinely concerned to promote the interests of Milton Keynes and Wimbledon FC." Winkelman is indeed an unstoppable salesman for the delights of Milton Keynes as an emerging metropolis. He will not, however, say who his backers are in the Milton Keynes Stadium Consortium. This week he said that since 1998 he has worked to promote football in a stadium and retail leisure development in Milton Keynes, which needs a senior football club to facilitate planning permission. He previously approached Luton, Queen's Park Rangers and Barnet before Charles Koppel agreed to take Wimbledon there.

Asda – now owned by the US cut-price shopping giant Walmart – announced this week that it would open a store on the site. Out-of-town shopping centres are now contrary to government guidelines and stadia have become a way for giant retailers to locate themselves out of town. Asda also have a store at the Commonwealth Games Stadium, soon to be Manchester City's new ground. This is football used as a battering ram by superstores, not quite what the FA's founding fathers had in mind.

The fans argued that if Milton Keynes wants football, one of its local teams should marshall support and work its way up – progress for which Wimbledon themselves are the model. The club and Winkelman believed the supporters would swallow the move – the commission talked about "a section" of fans being opposed – but the near total boycott of "Franchise FC" and the joyous renaissance of AFC Wimbledon at Kingstonian's ground have shocked them.

The club are now now aiming to move to Milton Keynes by Christmas, to play in a temporarily converted 12,000-seat facility on, said Winkelman, "the flat part of the Milton Keynes Bowl."

"I'm very disappointed at how the Wimbledon fans have reacted," he added, "but I take my hat off to them." Kris Stewart, preparing for today's match against Cove, which most people expect to be watched by more fans than Wimbledon FC's First Division home match with Brighton, said: "It's been very emotional. Football isn't about shareholders salvaging bad investments. It's about fans, community, and loyalty. We've restored our club to its supporters."

The FA commission believes this is "not in the wider interests of football". Football lovers can only watch the drama unfold and make their own minds up.

davidconn@freeuk.com